I'm There Too
by Sara Sidle Grissom
Summary: Sara has left Las Vegas and Grissom has to decide whether he is ready to make one of the biggest sacrifices in his life to go and find her. Chapter 2 is up now. GSR Work In Progress
1. Prologue

**_Title: I'm There Too_**

Spoilers: If you haven't seen 8.07 and 8.08...

A/N: It's been a long time since I actually posted one of my stories, so I figured it was about time again. This piece is just a prologue and unbeta-ed. I'm not completely sure where it's gonna go from here, but I'll figure it out. Hope you enjoy!

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_**It had been about six months since she had left Las Vegas, six months since she had left him. He thought it would get easier every day, as long as he kept focusing on why he was here, why he was doing this job. But now he knew he had lost his touch ever since he met her. She'd put him under a spell, she had made him fall in love with her, more and harder every day he was around her. His love used to be his work, but she was his love now. He could not go on without her anymore. He needed to find her, as soon as he could. 

"Gil you have a minute?" Catherine's voice sounded from the doorway, before she slowly walked in. She noticed his pre-occupied expression and smiled slightly. "She'll be back," she whispered, in an attempt to soothe him. Everyone acted as if he was about to break, they were all so careful with their words around him. Sometimes it was easy, that everyone looked out for him. But most of the time he got annoyed and told them to get away from him and leave him alone.

Gil ignored her last comment and nodded, waving her in a bit more. "Sure, what do you have for me?" He asked, lowering his glasses and looking at her over the rim of them.

Catherine smiled. "Well, nothing much really, just need your signature," she said, holding up the file before placing it on his desk in front of him. She sat down in one of the chairs on the other side of it and watched him as he grabbed a pen and signed the papers, without even reading them. He really had changed through Sara, she noticed. "What are you going to do about this?" She decided to confront him with his behavior of the past months. "You've been moping for six months now, have you talked to her at all? Has she called you?"

Gil shook his head. "No she hasn't. But she needs time away, then she gets time away, I'm not going to drive her into a corner. She needs her space and I need to accept that," he said slowly, thoughtfully. He looked up at her and saw her slight headshake, at which he raised his eyebrow.

"Gil, she loves you, you love her more than your job. Why don't you…" She stopped for a moment, wondering how she could best phrase this. She knew 'retire' wasn't the right word, but maybe he could start over, together with Sara. "You should go after her," she said and smiled a bit. 'There, I finally told him,' she thought to herself.

With a frown Gil looked at her. "Cath I just told you… she needs her time away, I'm not going to corner her," he explained and put on his glasses again, reading the case file that was resting on his desk.

But Catherine didn't let go of the subject that easily. "You should start over, together. You've done this job for years, now it's time to begin something new, together with Sara," she whispered, but knew in the back of her mind how difficult it would be for him to let this all go.

Grissom looked up at her again with a frown. "Excuse me?"

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**_To Be Continued_**


	2. Chapter I

_**Disclaimer: **I don't own any of these characters with the exception of Charlie and Becca.  
**A/N:** Okay, so there it starts, the first chapter of the I don't know how many in this installment. I hope you all like it, I know I enjoyed writing it. Chapter 2 shouldn't be too long.

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_**Chapter I**

With a sigh Sara wrapped the scarf closer around her neck as a small cloud of oxygen formed itself from the air she'd breathed out. It had been a good decision to leave the warm heat of Las Vegas, but to be confronted with a snow blizzard wasn't exactly how she'd imagined to spend her days. Her car had snowed in and now she was forced to walk to the campus. The snow cracked under her boots and Sara felt herself shiver slightly. She didn't miss the heat, she missed something though, or someone rather.

But now she was here, her new hometown, or an old one rather, Boston Massachusetts. She walked up the lawn that lead to the front door of the Boston College, her hands in her pockets. A student held the door open for her and she smiled at him in gratitude. "Thanks Charlie," she said gently as she made her way inside, the warmth wrapping around her like a welcoming blanket.

She quickly made her way to her office, hanging her coat and scarf on the coat rack. She straightened her black blouse and sat at her desk. After gathering the right sheets and books for her lecture she got up, gave herself a quick look in the mirror and walked out. With the key she opened the door to the lecture room, turning on the lights and waiting for the students to arrive. After placing her things on the desk at the front of the room, she went to get a cup of coffee.

When she had grabbed a cup she went back to the lecture hall, proud to see that half of the room was already filled with interested students. "Good morning," she greeted them as she walked down the steps to her desk. She put the cup down and turned the overhead projector on. After casting a quick look at her watch, she decided she had a few minutes more to grade their tests from the week before. They had been asking her about those a lot.

Nearly fifteen minutes later she asked one of her students to close the door and swallowed the last bit of her coffee down. "To all the students I've seen in the last semester I want to say, welcome back, and to all the others, I'm glad you could make it to come," she said politely and grabbed the first sheet from the pile on her desk. "The first hour I want to use to explain a little bit more on hair and fiber analysis, then we'll take a short break and I'll let you work on your projects. During that hour I'll be here to answer all your questions. The last hour we'll close off with a little case I'd like to hear your interpretations on."

A hand went up into the air and Sara smiled gently, "Yes?"

"Will we discuss one of the cases you worked on yourself back in Las Vegas?" Charlie's voice raised from the crowd. His black hair was messy and his dark eyes were lined with some extra kohl. He was a silent student, not really popular among his classmates, but he was a good kid and an excellent student.

Sara frowned a bit, contemplating the options. "I could, I'll think of one when you're working in your project groups, agreed?"

Charlie nodded in excitement, "Yes, cool."

* * *

After a few theoretical explanations on hair and fiber analysis, Sara grabbed another sheet. The sheet contained pictures of hair samples, shown under the microscope. "Okay, who can tell me what kind of hair the first one is?" She asked and waited for some fingers to rise. "Yes, Becca?"

"It's a cat hair," the girl in the front row answered. She was looking over her glasses, a pencil resting behind her ear. She had been taking a lot of notes throughout the hour and Sara nodded with a pursed smile at her answer.

"Can you tell me why?" She asked as she looked at the younger student.

Becca nodded and placed her pencil down on her lap, nervously twisting it around with her fingers, never liking to be the center of all attention. "The medulla, or the center of the hair, is split up in little pieces, looking like a pearl chain. That's something only found in cat hairs," she explained, a small blush on her face as the guy next to her chuckled a little in his hand.

"Excellent Becca, anything you have to say?" Sara asked the guy next to her.

When he shook his head quickly, a bright red blush creeping up his cheeks, she smiled. "Alright, and this one?"

This time Charlie was the first to raise his hand. "That one is human, probably from a blonde woman, but her natural hair color is brunette," the student said, his eyes sparkling as he looked at his lecturer.

"Yes, this is indeed human. But how do you know it's a women's hair?" Sara asked, interested in his logic behind the statement.

The guy smirked a bit, "I uhm… got a little carried away. I thought because of the obvious many hair dyes, it would be a girl, but uhm… never mind."

Sara chuckled slightly as she nodded, "Yes, never base your conclusions on something like that. The only thing we can determine here is that the hair is human, coming from the head. We can see that in the shape of the hair. Can you tell me how you saw this was human Charlie?"

Charlie nodded, "The medulla in this hair is about a third of the whole hair, if it were bigger it would be an animal hair."

"Excellent Charlie," she nodded and clapped her hands together, looking around. "Any questions?" She asked, and when she noticed everyone was shaking their head, she smiled. With a small clear of her throat she gathered some papers from her desk, starting to hand them out in the first row. "Pass them on to the back please?"

When she had resumed her position at the front of the class she sat down on the desk, crossing her legs. "Alright, I want you all to form small investigation teams of four members and sit together in a group. On the sheet that I've just passed out – or had pass out for me, there's a small list of items, the evidence found at the crime scene, I want you all to write down what you could do with that," she paused for a moment, closing her eyes to stop the headache starting behind them.

"I'll walk you through the case shortly before I will let you at it," she said and looked around the room. "When you arrive at the crime scene you have no idea what you are dealing with and when you approach the crime scene tape and see a colleague throwing down dummies from an hotel roof," Sara started and stopped for a moment, memories flooding back into her mind, penetrating her thoughts.

_"Norman 'fell'." _

_"Wouldn't you if you were married to Mrs. Roper?"_

She still remembered how handsome he had looked right there and then, taking pictures of the various dummies that were lying on the ground. His skin was tanned and the black shirt suited him nicely. He was still as handsome as when she had seen him last.

_"I don't even have to turn around. Sara Sidle."_

_"That's me. Still tossing simulation dummies? There are other ways to tell, you know?"_

She merely smiled at herself as she remembered everything but shook herself awake to tell them the rest of the story. "Of course there are other ways instead of throwing down dummies," she smirked, "but your colleague is a real scientist who likes to see things. Newton dropped the apple, he dropped the dummies," she said and paused for a moment, remembering those were exactly his words to her. "Anyway, you have all the pictures of the victim and you find out that he was pushed, but you already could have known because he is still wearing his glasses."

Charlie was the first to raise his hand at that. "What does that have to do with anything?" He asked.

Sara smiled at him. "People who want to end our lives are too much of a coward to see it. Most of them take off their glasses so they don't have to see. It's never been proven, but it can help in an investigation," she explained and then clapped her hands together. "Okay, I'll let you all at it, I will be here to answer any questions."

At the end of her class she was amazed by the number of good solutions to the case and complimented her students. "Okay, this was it for today, I hope to see you all tomorrow," she said and smiled.

She returned to her desk to work on grading some more papers as all the students stood up to leave. Except for one. She could feel a pair of eyes burning holes on her, so she looked up. She was greeted by the pair of blue eyes that had been haunting her for the past months.

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**TBC**


	3. Chapter II

_**Disclaimer:** I do not own any of this characters, with the exception of Lewis Daniels.  
**A/N: **Sorry it took me a while to update this, but I have been sick and diagnosed with mono (Pfeiffer's disease), so updates will be coming, but probably a little slower. Please bear with me and I hope you'll like this chapter. It's a bit blah, but it's something that needed to be done :). Enjoy!

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_**Chapter II**

He didn't know how long it had taken him to come to the conclusion that Catherine had been right. She had been right about the fact that he had to go and find Sara, that he had to go after her. He now realized that trying to ignore everything that had happened, and just lose himself in his work again, wasn't going to do it this time. He had changed too much, Sara had changed him too much. His work used to be of outmost importance, but since he and Sara got together, that just wasn't so sure anymore. She meant more to him than he could have ever imagined and probably would have ever allowed.

But now he was here, he didn't remember how he had figured out that she was here, but he just felt it. He had tried finding some phone numbers of Sara's family, but they all told him that they hadn't seen her in years. Of course that wasn't of any surprise to him, she had told him that if she would ever visit her family again, she would need him to be there. She couldn't handle the confrontation all by herself. He, of all people, understood that more than anyone would. He felt the same with his own family, with the exception of his mother. His mother… If Sara and he were okay again, they would have to go and see her, before it would be too late.

With that thought Grissom stood at the baggage claim at the airport of Boston, waiting for his suitcases to arrive. His suitcases seemed to always be the last ones to get back, maybe that was because sometimes he took something with bugs with him. This time again, he had taken Sara's favorite butterfly frame. In case she wouldn't want to see him anymore – he had been very pessimistic, he would be able to give her that frame, so she could always be reminded of him when she looked at it. _Cut the crap Gil, of course you and Sara are going to be okay. Just because she said she needs some time away, doesn't mean she'll leave you forever,_ he thought to himself, but then immediately worried if it wasn't too soon to go looking for her. Catherine had convinced him it wasn't, but now that he was getting close, he wasn't so sure anymore.

When his suitcases finally arrived he hailed himself a cab and told the driver to drive to the nearest hotel. There he checked in and asked for a suite, in case Sara would go back with him. The man smiled knowingly and gave him the key, wishing him a great night. Grissom shook his head and walked towards the elevator, happy when it arrived empty. One the first floor an elderly lady walked in, her perfume so strong that it almost floored him. He rubbed his nose a bit and was happy to see she went out before him. Finally at the right floor, he got out, rolling the suitcases behind him. He found the suite without difficulty and headed in. Without even looking around he plopped down on the bed.

He let himself fall back, resting his head on his hands as he looked up at the ceiling. He had no idea how he was going to find her, but he knew he would. He was a CSI, if he could find the tiniest pieces, he would sure be able to find Sara. Unless… Sara didn't want to be found. _Don't start thinking about that Gil, she'll be just fine, probably happy to see you again,_ he thought to himself, boosting his ego a bit. "Alright, you better start calling around," he told himself as he got up, grabbing his little notebook with phone numbers from former co-workers, mostly teachers.

After spending a week in Boston, he'd finally found her. All morning he had prepared on how he would approach her, how he would go on his knees begging for her to come back. But he had done none of that. Instead he had decided to watch one of her lectures, so he hid in the back of the big class room. It amazed him with how much love she did this, the teaching. And she wasn't bad at it either, although she always said she was. All those hours she amazed him, and he was listening to her intently, every once in a while drifting away in memories. When the end of the lecture had finally come, the students had left the room and she had returned to the desk, he found the courage to go up to her.

He hadn't thought at all about what he was going to say to her, and he found himself staring into her beautiful brown eyes for a moment. He could see she was startled, but so was he. Both stared at each other for a moment before Sara's eyes tore away from his and she looked around the room. "What are you doing here?" She asked, rather matter of factly and it sent a slight chill down Grissom's spine. He hadn't expected her to sound so cold when she would see him again, he hadn't counted on the fact that maybe she wasn't all to happy to see him already again.

"I came to see you," he replied, trying to sound cool as if it was the most normal thing to do. He swallowed his nerves away and gave her a small smile. He then decided to show some vulnerability. "I miss you."

Sara let out a sigh and didn't meet his eyes, "Gil I told you I would have to handle my problems alone… I don't understand why you couldn't wait. I was going to come back."

Fear gripped him. "You _were_, as in… you're not coming back anymore?" He asked, his eyes slightly widened as he looked at her. The thought of losing her forever made his heart ache with a pain he hadn't ever felt before. He couldn't go on without her, he knew that now. She still was his life.

Sara met his eyes quickly. "You know, why don't we discuss this over coffee later, I have a new class in a few minutes," she replied, grabbing some papers together from the desk and standing up. "There's a small coffee shop down the street from this university, I'll be there at four," she said and left the room.

"I'll be there," he called after her and left the room as well, wandering the campus. His mind went over the words she said to him. '_I was going to come back'_. He didn't quite understand what she had meant with that. Was she really coming back to him, or had that just been her intention when she left? He could see she was having a good job as a lecturer, and doing a really good job at it too. He could understand if she would want to settle down there and not go back to Vegas. But had she thought of him… of them?

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He didn't like calling in for favors, especially not when that person he would call was a practical stranger to him. Of course Lewis had told him to call him for anything at any time, but he never thought he really would. His fingers hesitated above the numbers and he rubbed his eye with his other hand. _Alright just do it you coward, she won't know you're here if you don't try and find her,_ he told himself, needing the courage. Finally he had dialed the number and was waiting for his former co-lecturer to pick up. "Daniels," it sounded from the other line.

Grissom cleared his throat. "Lewis, it's Gil Grissom from the crime lab in Las Vegas," he started, having not thought on how to introduce himself properly to someone he hadn't seen in at least five years.

"Ah, the famous entomologist, I remember you from our lecture in New York. How long has it been, three years?" The man asked, his voice sounding low but friendly. Grissom remembered it had been a very pleasant man to talk to, serious and understanding. He was a little more easy-going than himself though, but Grissom liked that about him, wishing he could use him as an example.

"It's been five years already," Grissom smiled into the phone, "Listen, I have a favor to ask."

Lewis chuckled a low chuckle at the other end, "You know how it works with favors with me Gil, I do something for you, you do something for me," the man said.

Grissom pinched the bridge of his nose, he hadn't counted on that. "Is it an acceptable thing to do in return?"

"Of course it is, nothing illegal, don't worry about it. Let's discuss both of these favors over dinner tonight. Where are you at?"

"I'm uh… I'm in Boston. The Golden Tulip Hotel," he explained and hoped that Lewis would be able to find the time to have dinner with him so they could discuss everything. "You live and teach in Boston right?"

Lewis chuckled again. "I still do, nothing can be said about your memory Gil. Alright, I'll see you at the Moonlight Bar at five tonight, we'll have a drink and head out for food when we need it."

Grissom sighed relieved and asked for directions. "A million thanks Lewis."

"No problem," the man responded and hung up.

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**TBC**


End file.
